#Spacing - Steve Clifford Thread

[BeesWax]

You are the one accepting it because most of the rest of us want a change.

That's not true at all, I am saying we have to actually fix the offense. Ironically in this situation you are the one that is being more lenient - I don't think just saying increase the pace is going to be a significant improvement, and I think it ignores the real problem. If we can't fix the real problem, then someone needs to go.

IMO the real problem is coaching. He has the pieces to make a working system should he choose to create an offense. My suggestion is what needs to be done if we leave Cliff here like you want. He has shown 0 ability to create a working offense. The only time our offense looked good is when Al played out of this world hero ball and did it by himself. Cliff has not been able to get his players good looks. Everything is pull up off the dribble. The change needs to come with a new coach or at least a vet assistant that knows offense and can fix what Cliff has broken.

[mrknowitall215]

I don't think just saying increase the pace is going to be a significant improvement, and I think it ignores the real problem. If we can't fix the real problem, then someone needs to go.

The "real problem" is the constructure of the roster. A more complete conglomerate of talent could cover a lot of Clifford's deficiencies (almost as it did last season) as well as the view of the team. It wouldn't fix the problem into a well oiled machine, but it would get things moving in the right direction to achieve successful production

I'm not a advocate of Clifford, but at the same time I think we could do a lot worse

[ball teacher]

On other Hornets boards, I see Al gets alot of flack for not passing out of double teams at times, but I think Cliff also has to be blamed for setting the climate in which Al feels that he has to take over and not trust his teammates. My reason for this opinion? When we play in the 4th quarters, our offense changes drastically. If MKG plays late, we put him out of the frame of the offense due to a lack of trust in his game, remember, Cliff didnt start playing MKGlate in games until everyone got hurt and MKG shown he was productive and not the liability offensively Cliff ASSUMED him to be. Everyone knows late in games, we play hero ball where only 2 maybe 3 players are actually involved in the offense, this is why we've lost so many games late because we stop playing team ball and Cliff calls certain players numbers and trusts only them to shoot the rock.

I normally have no problem with hero ball...if you have a hero. We dont have a Harden, Curry, Irving, or Westbrook. This is one positive for the Atl Hawks, they play team ball and move the ball to open shooters. We dont do that because our coach preaches what certain guys cant do as opposed to putting them in position to do what they can do. So we have Al taking shots that may be forced, but Kemba took just as many forced and bad shots. Mo came aboard and immediately got the green light to jack up anything. When Kemba was hurt before Mo got here, Hendo tried his best to take this role.

MKG would be put in the shame corner and the guys would try their best to not swing the ball to his side of the court unless he was WIDE open, this resulted in us using half the court in offensive sets which hurt our spacing and made us easier to defend. Zeller rarely got the chance to finish games because we trust Marv more than him. Problem is, by seasons end we saw how valuable those two guys were to this team because those are the only two who, when werent playing due to injury, we couldnt win without. And if I am wrong and Cliff didnt give certain players the green light at the end of games, he's still wrong for not demanding them to swing the ball for better shots, so either way Cliff deserves some of the blame.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/scott ... tt-brooks/

Read this and think about Clifford. The very end, when Zach was talking about Orlando really hit home for me. Like Brooks, Cliff is good at parts of his job. But I honestly don't don't think that Cliff is going to be able to craft a workable offense with most of the guys currently on the roster. I also don't think that Cliff is the best coach to develop some of our younger guys. What happened to OKC with Brooks seems amazingly similar to what's happening here now.

[yosemiteben]

I also don't think that Cliff is the best coach to develop some of our younger guys. What happened to OKC with Brooks seems amazingly similar to what's happening here now.

For your first sentence, I would say player development has been a huge strength of Brooks.

For your second one, the talent difference is so huge that I don't think you can compare the two.

[LofJ]

Bottom line is that we have to hire someone that can help Clifford with the offense. If it were up to me I'd hire someone from college that has the potential to be a head coach. Tommy Amaker at Harvard would be who I'd go after.

[mrknowitall215]

Bottom line is that we have to hire someone that can help Clifford with the offense.

The million dollar question is if Clifford is willing to allow the team to choose a outsourced assistant coach for his staff to help on the offensive end, and/or if he's even pride-less enough to accept his faults on that end to seek help on his own merits

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

I also don't think that Cliff is the best coach to develop some of our younger guys. What happened to OKC with Brooks seems amazingly similar to what's happening here now.

For your first sentence, I would say player development has been a huge strength of Brooks.

For your second one, the talent difference is so huge that I don't think you can compare the two.

Did you read the player development part of what Zach wrote in the link?

[yosemiteben]

I also don't think that Cliff is the best coach to develop some of our younger guys. What happened to OKC with Brooks seems amazingly similar to what's happening here now.

For your first sentence, I would say player development has been a huge strength of Brooks.

For your second one, the talent difference is so huge that I don't think you can compare the two.

Did you read the player development part of what Zach wrote in the link?

Unless I'm missing something, he just mentioned Lamb and Jones. I think Brooks's player development successes speak for themselves. I mean Lowe said himself that Brooks is a good fit on a young team.

[BeesWax]

For your first sentence, I would say player development has been a huge strength of Brooks.

For your second one, the talent difference is so huge that I don't think you can compare the two.

Did you read the player development part of what Zach wrote in the link?

Unless I'm missing something, he just mentioned Lamb and Jones. I think Brooks's player development successes speak for themselves. I mean Lowe said himself that Brooks is a good fit on a young team.

We should just get Doug Collins he developed Jordan and Pippen right?

[LofJ]

Bottom line is that we have to hire someone that can help Clifford with the offense.

The million dollar question is if Clifford is willing to allow the team to choose a outsourced assistant coach for his staff to help on the offensive end, and/or if he's even pride-less enough to accept his faults on that end to seek help on his own merits

If he's too prideful to admit his own faults and work with the organization to address them then that should make the decision on whether to extend his contract next year rather easy.

[mrknowitall215]

Did you read the player development part of what Zach wrote in the link?

Unless I'm missing something, he just mentioned Lamb and Jones. I think Brooks's player development successes speak for themselves. I mean Lowe said himself that Brooks is a good fit on a young team.

We should just get Doug Collins he developed Jordan and Pippen right?

That was witty

[JDR720]

I assume we will hire someone to replace Price, maybe that guy can be the offensive coordinator.

[yosemiteben]

We should just get Doug Collins he developed Jordan and Pippen right?

If Brooks only had Westbrook and Durant then this would be a good point.

[BeesWax]

We should just get Doug Collins he developed Jordan and Pippen right?

If Brooks only had Westbrook and Durant then this would be a good point.

The only player he has you could consider he "developed" was Ibaka. 7 and 7 from Adams is not so great that I would consider that a huge success. So yeah it is a very apt comparison. take Horace Grant as the Ibaka of the group and I would say Collins did better work with his three.

[yosemiteben]

The only player he has you could consider he "developed" was Ibaka.

So you have Durant, Westbrook, Harden, and Ibaka. Reggie Jackson would have to be included as well. There may have been drama when he left, but his game significantly developed under Brooks.

And Steven Adams is only 21 years old. I'd say his game was coming along very well under Brooks. He plays a major role on that team.

[mrknowitall215]

We should just get Doug Collins he developed Jordan and Pippen right?

If Brooks only had Westbrook and Durant then this would be a good point.

Would Charles Oakley and Horace Grant count as players Doug Collins developed?

[BeesWax]

We should just get Doug Collins he developed Jordan and Pippen right?

If Brooks only had Westbrook and Durant then this would be a good point.

Would Charles Oakley and Horace Grant count as players Doug Collins developed?

Under the setup we are going to apparently use I would have to say yes.

[BeesWax]

The only player he has you could consider he "developed" was Ibaka.

So you have Durant, Westbrook, Harden, and Ibaka. Reggie Jackson would have to be included as well. There may have been drama when he left, but his game significantly developed under Brooks.

And Steven Adams is only 21 years old. I'd say his game was coming along very well under Brooks. He plays a major role on that team.

Adams is doing about the same as Cody so does Clifford do as good a job as Brooks? How about MKG getting better do we give Clifford that too?

I do not consider him a great developer of talent since he had Harden, Durant and Westbrook to work with. Those guys with that talent and drive would have done well anywhere. His best "development" was Jackson I guess but then you have high picks with talent like Lamb and Jones who did nothing under his guidance. Maybe they are bad or maybe they go somewhere else and excel. Basically he had a ton of talent drop in his lap then he did a great job of letting them play to their strengths. The playing to the strengths part is what Clifford could learn from.

[BlackOutBuzz]

I don't know how you can discern between talent that he developed (or didn't develop) vs. talent that "fell into his lap." I don't think it's fair to say he couldn't develop a cherry-picked group, then point to the ones that did pan out and say "well, they would've been good anywhere they went."